Musical Instruments

My father plays the old Chinese guitar and the violin, he has been playing that for years to entertain himself whenever he is happy and feeling good. Whenever his children come home and gather in the house for the festive season and family celebration, his complacency and happiness are very much expressed and manifested by this act of playing those musical intrument. My dad's skill in playing the harmonica is better when compared to the other two instruments. But it seems he does not like to play with the harmonica that much!

And it is true that musician plays music first started with the intention of entertaining and enjoying himself and then next only come the audience. To me, my dad is a better singer especially for those old Chinese opera songs that seem to be more popularly sung in Hongkong and mainland China instead of in Malaysia. He sings with a loud and good voice! Only my brother CM Lee inherited his good voice in the art of singing!

He used to play his violin with one of his good old buddy by the name of Ah Too, who used to come to our house fairly frequently for the so called "old men jamming session" . This good musician friend of my dad passed away years ago. My impression until now is that this uncle Ah Too played extremely well violin. He played with such passion that he seemed to have fully absorbed and submerged himself into the music whenever he pushed and pulled the string over the instrument. The graceful motion of the play and the expression of his face told it all!

Somehow my brother CM Lee and myself are very much influenced by my father on the liking of playing musical instrument. When I was in standard one and two, I played the recorder. And I learned to play the Chinese flute by myself. And when in secondary Pei Yuan school, I joined the school band and played the Clarinet. While in form 4 and form 5 in ACS Kampar Methodist school, I picked up guitar and played my rhythm guitar fairly well. Guitar becomes the favorite instrument both for my brother and myself. Later part I started to try on the bass guitar and play it in the church band just for the fun of it.

I have to admit that I am not so talented in music and musical instrument though I played above average compared to many people. My brother CM Lee had progressed much better than me in this musical hobby; without going through any formal training, he plays his guitar and piano well, almost half professional I would say!

My son does not seem to develop the liking for playing musical intrument very much though my wife and I tried very hard, even to the extent of buying a drum set at home to lure him into it. Contrary to my son, my daughter really likes music a lot and now she plays violin, piano and also learns on classical guitar. Her passion for music would one day enable her to become a good musician, a dream which I myself could not fulfill, but I hope one day she could do that on my behalf!